William Shakespeare Bio, Marriage & Children, Plays, Poems, and Legacy

William Shakespeare Bio, Marriage & Children, Plays, Poems, and Legacy : William Shakespeare was an English Poet, Playwright, and actor who was active between 26 April 1564 and 23 April 1616. He is extremely famous and more popular as the greatest writer in especially English language and dramatist. He is called the National Poet of England often along with Bard of Avon. His collaborations comprise some 154 sonnets, 39 plays, three long narrative poems, and other verses. Let’s go through the topic to know about William Shakespeare’s Bio, Marriage, Children, Plays, Verses, and Death briefly.

William Shakespeare Bio, Marriage & Children, Plays, Poems, and Legacy

Early Life

John Shakespeare the father of Shakespeare was a member of a municipal assembly. Shakespeare’s father was a successful glove-maker from Snitterfield village in the Warwickshire district. Mary Arden or Mary Shakespeare was the mother of Shakespeare from the Affluent Landowning Family. Shakespeare’s date of birth is unknown and was born in Stratford-upon-Avon commonly known as Stratford.

On 26 Apr 1564, he was baptized in Stratford. His father and mother gave birth to eight children and Shakespeare was the third of eight and the eldest alive one. No attendance records aren’t available about Shakespeare’s education but according to Biographer’s study, he probably studied at a free school in 1553 at the King’s New School in Stratford.

His school was 400 meters away from his home. During the Elizebath era, Grammer schools vary in quality of education most of the grammar curricula is similar but originally schools taught Latin at that time.

Marriage & Childrens

Anne Hathaway is an English poet, Playwright, and actor. Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway at the age of 18 at that time her age was 26 years old. Their marriage license was issued by the Consistory Court of the Diocese of Worcester on 27 November 1582. The Marriage hadn’t been impeded by the lawful claims and the marriage ceremony have been conducted in some haste by the Worcester Chancellor.

After six months of their marriage, Hathaway gave birth to a child named Susanna. After two years later again she had given birth to two twins son Hamnet and a daughter Judith. At the early age of 11, their son Hamnet died for unknown reasons on 11 August 1596. Susanna was baptized on 26 May 1583 and two twins were Baptized on 2 Feb 1585 before Hamnet died.

Due to the poaching of deer in the estate of the local squire, Shakespeare ran away from the town to London to escape prosecution. This situation was recounted by Nicholas Rowe who was the first biographer of Shakespeare.

Plays

Richard III and the three series of Henry VI are the first play works written by Shakespeare around the 1590s. Most of his play works are associated with tragedy, history, and comedy. The studies suggest that The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Titus Andronicus, and The Taming of the Shrew may also be regarding the earliest period of Shakespeare.

Three by fourth of his play works suggest comedy and one by fourth suggest History and tragedy. His early play works suggest that interpreted the corrupted rule as the origins of the Tudor dynasty and have been dramatized as a justification for them. Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe are the most important figures in the development of Elizabeth’s Drama and Shakespeare have been influenced by these dramatists in his early play works.

The Comedy Of Errors was related to Classical models but The Taming of the shrew hasn’t any sources have been found. However, it belonged to a different play of the same name and may probably have been obtained from a folk story.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a play written by Shakespeare in which two-man seems to approve of rape and The Taming of the Shrew has been got some trouble to directors, critics, and audience. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a witty compound of fairy magic, comic, and romance scenes play work written by Shakespeare in about 1595.

The Merchant of Venice was the next comedy play by William Shakespeare have been written between 1596 and 98. This one also consists of equal romance and comedy. Let’s see the list of some plays written by Shakespeare.

• Much Ado About Nothing.
• As You Like It.
• Twelfth Night.
• Richard II.
• Henry IV part 1.
• Henry IV part 2.
• Henry V.
• Romeo and Juliet.
• Julius Caesar.
• Problem Plays.
• Measure for Measure.
• Troilus and Cressida.
• All’s Well That Ends Well.
• The Tragedy of Hamlet.
• King Lear.
• Othello.
• Macbeth.
• Antony and Cleopatra.
• Coriolanus.
• The Tragedy of Cymbeline.
• The Winter’s Tale.
• The Tempest.
• Pericles, Princes of Tyre.

Shakespeare and, John Fletcher who was an English playwright, collaborated in writing two play works Henry VIII and The Two Nobel Kinsmen.

Classification

First Folio was a modern Scholar who published a collection of William Shakespeare’s comedies, histories, and tragedies. 36 plays of Shakespeare have been printed by First Folio in 1623 followed by two that hadn’t printed Pericles, Princes of Tyre, and The Two Nobel Kinsmen. Edward Dowden a professor, critic, and poet classified Shakespeare’s last late four comedies as romances, however, some scholars prefer to classify them as tragicomedies.

Performances

There is no clear evidence of which company took the right to write Shakespeare’s early plays. According to the Titus Andronicus edition that reveals Three troupes have been involved in writing Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare’s plays had been acted by his own company at Curtain and The Theater in the Shoreditch district, after the plague of 1592-93.

The first playhouse Globe was built by the actors for actors, was built on the south bank of the Thames, and launched in the Autumn season of 1599. Julius Caesar was the first play staged at the Globe Theater. After that, most of Shakespeare’s plays were written for the Globe Theater including Othello, Tragedy of Hamlet, and King Lear.

William Shakespeare plugged his career at King’s Men company between 1564 and 1616. Between 1 Nov 1604 and 31 Oct 1605, King’s Men performed Shakespeare’s seven plays at Globe Theater along with two performances of The Merchant of Venice. After 1608, during the winter season, they performed at Blackfriars indoor Theater, and during the summer season, they performed at Globe Theater.

William Kempe, Richard Burbage, John Heminges, and Henry Condell were famous stage actors who performed in Shakespeare’s company of his time. Among them, Richard Burbage played a leading role in the plays of Othello, Hamlet, Richard III, and King Lear. Will Kempe was a famous comic actor, who played an important role in Romeo and Juliet. Dogberry played a bubbling watchmen character created by Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing.

Textual Sources

A collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays has been published in the First Folio by two friends of Shakespeare Henry Condell and John Heminges. The list of editions contained 36 texts in which for the first time 18 were printed. Feeble books are made from sheets of paper and there is no proof that Shakespeare suggest and agree with these editions. Later First Folio illustrated these copies as confidential or stolen copies.

Alfred William Pollard was an English Bibliographer who adapted pre-1623 versions and treated them as bad quartos.

Poems

In about 1593 and 1594, plague played a severe role in London which took tons of people’s lives by that time. In such period theaters were closed and there is no scope to play stage shows. Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece were two sexual theme poems narrated by Shakespeare. An innocent Adonis rejects the sexual relationships of Venus in Venus and Adonis.

Lucrece was a Virtuous wife in The Rape of Lucrece, who was raped by a lustful Tarquin. By taking the theme of these poems shows the moral and guilty of uncontrolled lust. A Lovers Complaint is the third poem that came from Shakespeare’s hand and was published by Thomas Thorpe. This poem describes a beautiful young lady lamenting her consuetude convinced suiter.

Without Shakespeare’s permission, The Passionate Pilgrim was published taking his name.

Sonnets

Sonnets were the last to be printed of the non-dramatic works of Shakespeare. Scholars didn’t know when was composed each of the 154 sonnets, however, according to the evidence he wrote sonnets to his entire career for a private readership. He had written two contrasting series, The Rape of Lucrece is about an impatient lust for a married woman and A Lover’s Complaint is about conflicted affection for an innocent young fellow.

There is no evidence the 1609 edition was written by Shakespeare himself or by Thomas Thorpe who was an English publisher, but it was dedicated to Mr. W.H.

Writing Style

His plays were written first time in a conventional style. The characters of the drama have been written in a stylized language that doesn’t look natural. After that, Shakespeare began to adopt the traditional style soon to his requirements. He used mixing styles in Romeo and Juliet as more natural poetry in early 1590 including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet.

He enhanced and tuned his pictures and metaphors to the requirements of stage drama itself. Shakespeare’s standard writing style is iambic pentameter, used in the blank verse poem. Which meant comprised ten syllables to a line and his poem was unrhymed usually, every second syllable was spoken with hard stress.

A.C Bradley who was an English literacy Scholar described Shakespeare’s style as Varied, less regular, elliptical, rapid, more concentrated, in construction, and not seldom twisted. In the last stage of his career, he adopted different techniques to represent his writing style including irregular pauses, extreme variations in sentence formation and length of the sentence, and run-on lines.

Influence

Later Shakespeare’s play works made a notable and best impression on theater and literature. He expanded dramatic characterization, language style, plot, and genre in dramatic potential. Utilized spoken with loud mainly in drama to convey the characters of events. However, Shakespeare utilized those techniques to discover the character’s minds.

Later, his works were more influenced the poetry. Shakespeare’s poem drama has been attempted to revive by romantic poets, However, they got little success. Francis George Steiner was a Franco-American Literacy critic, Novelist, Philosopher, educator, and essayist who described Shakespeare’s themes as feeble variations in verse dramas when compared to Coleridge to Tennyson.

William Faulkner, Thomas Hardy, and Charles Dickens were influenced by Shakespeare’s poems. 20,000 pieces of music have been found that are linked to Shakespeare’s play works by Scholars. Shakespeare has also influenced many painters including Romantics and Pre Raphaelites who was an English painter.

Speculation

Authorship

About 230 years after Shakespeare’s death, there are some doubts has begun about the authorship of his play works expressed and attributed to him. Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, and Edward de Vere are the candidates who proposed their views about authorship works. Some of Shakespeare’s literacy historians and scholars opposed their views against Shakespeare’s Authorship and consider it as Fringe Theory.

Religion

Shakespeare belonged to the official state religion and was a member of the Church of England, it was confirmed. Church of England illustrates his birth was made, his marriage, his children were baptized, and his burial. Practicing Catholicism was a crime against the law in England, at that time some scholars claimed that the Shakspeare family were Catholics.

Evidence proves, Mary Arden who was the mother of Shakespeare was from a pious Catholic family precisely. Strong evidence suggests a sign made by his father John Shakespeare on Catholic Statement identified in the rafters of his former house in 1757 in Henley Street. But the document has been lost now. Eventually, it is impossible to prove the truth may be.

Sexuality

Anne Hathaway is an English poet, Playwright, and actor. Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway at the age of 18 at that time her age was 26 years old. After six months of their marriage, Hathaway gave birth to a child named Susanna. After two years later again she had given birth to two twins son Hamnet and a daughter Judith.

Portraiture

There is no written crystal clear description of Shakespeare’s physical appearance and hasn’t any evidence that suggests ever commissioned a portrait by him. However, Martin Droeshout engraved William Shakespeare’s portrait as the title page of the First Folio Edition, which was approved by Ben Jonson as a good likeness.

Later Years & Death

Samuel Johnson who was an English writer stated that Shakespeare took the retirement to Stratford a few years before his death. At the age of 52, Shakespeare was dead on 23 April 1616, his death happened within a month of signing his will. After six months Shakespeare’s death, John Ward who was a vicar at Stratford, has written in his notebook there is no sign of the death of how or why Shakespeare died. Shakespeare was buried at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.

In 1608 in London still Shakespeare is working as an actor, Cuthbert Burbage took the Blackfriars Theater for lease from Henry Evans in 1608. In 1607 Susanna an elder daughter of Shakespeare married a Physician named John Hall. Two months before Shakespeare’s death meant in 1616 his younger daughter Judith married a Vinter named Thomas Quiney.